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this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
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Fuck Cars
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The American mind is just incapable of comprehending trains
We've been force-fed this line of bullshit about cars being freedom. Public transportation is for freaks and losers. I mean. GM and Standard Oil say so!
We can comprehend just fine. There's a project, California High Speed Rail, under construction to connect these two cities. The trouble is that our political and economic systems have become so sclerotic that China has built an entire HSR network since work on this line began, and it won't even be done before 2031.
We can still build highways, because the political and regulatory mechanisms to create them were fine-tuned as the system crystalized into inflexibility.
Frankly, this exact inability of U.S. society to change and adapt to new conditions was the signal indicator of the incipient collapse, for me.
Proposition 1A passed in 2008, followed by the awarding of federal stimulus funds in 2010.
The California HSR was a plot point in the second season of True Detective, which began production in January of 2014.
18 years later, the Phase One between San Francisco and Anaheim is still under construction.
If you wanted to build a track for these "high speed buses" it would require special safety features, signalling, barriers etc. that make it look much more like a train track than like a motorway. So you'd gain exactly nothing over building a train track.
Well, yes, exactly. A nation cannot remain an economic superpower by frittering away its wealth on expensive, but suboptimal shit like a "highway" for high-speed buses. If it's no longer able able to build effective, cheap infrastructure because it doesn't benefit an entrenched industry, then collapse isn't far off.
It's funny because 80% of comments about general "Americans" are also falling for the propaganda
Dedicated buslanes are great, but they can cause lumpy tarmac if you run a high frequency, high maintenance costs that could detract from other highway repairs..
Maybe add some long rows of steel reinforcement into the buslane (just to reduce maintenance costs of course), a protective barrier / embankment to stop cars encroaching.
Use E-busses of course, but maybe overhead wires, purely to reduce weight and fire risk.
/jk
I know in reality the curves and grades on a highway are too tight and steep, so you need a new easement.
I comprehend it fine. UK life, no car, train only for going on five years. Cheaper than owning a car, even with the occasional taxi ride. Get more steps in, too.
Well, don't get too comfortable with that. The UK is also going in the direction of Oops, All Cars as they slash rail budgets and build out enormous new highway lines.